In about 1986, Mark Adams planted 15,000 white mangroves in the mud at Stony Creek under the Westgate Bridge. Fifteen thousand! Spelling out that number, not just because it’s so huge, but because planting into the slipperiness of mud is about as difficult as planting conditions can be. After a century of petro-chemical discharge from […]
Main Content
Yarra & Bay
Talking about the Yarra again
This is (a slightly edited version of) my contribution to the Imagine the Yarra Conversations Public Event held at the Arts Centre on 19 September. It was prepared to be spoken rather than as a written piece. Good evening My subject is the River entrance. I pay my respects to the people and elders of the Wurrundjeri […]
Fishermans Bend
Turner Street, Fishermans Bend
Road Portraits There was no Turner Street when children from the nearby Fishermans Bend Migrant Hostel played there in the fifties. It was like an Enid Blyton story, recalls former hostel resident Robin Nash, where the children constructed an imaginary world out of the mini-islands in the swamp. Their parents would make their way over the […]
Planning
EES – 1987 & 2017
Environmental Effects Statement under the Environment Effects Act 1978 The house at 58 Station Street, Port Melbourne is for sale. Somehow this very small house has survived. Thirty years ago Mrs Myrtle Tims, then 89, sat on her verandah in the late afternoon sun mourning the loss of the Port Melbourne train that was to be […]
Heritage
Remembering
It’s too easy to catch the train to Fremantle from Perth. Emerge from the station to choose: the heritage heart of Fremantle, signposted the ‘cappuccino strip’, or the Port? The Port wins, of course. The heavy duty work of the Port of Fremantle takes place further down and on the other side of the Swan […]
Port of Melbourne
Future Port
The advice is in. Bay West is preferred to Hastings as the location for Melbourne’s future port, according to advice given to the Victorian Government by Infrastructure Victoria. The trigger for the move is suggested to be when Port capacity reaches 8 million TEU which it anticipates will be around 2055. TEUs unfamiliar to you as […]
PORT MELBOURNE
US Navy in Port
The amphibious assault ship USS Bonhomme Richard (LHD 6) spent six days in Port from August 28 after training exercises in our region to enhance ‘warfighting readiness’ and to prepare for any contingency. Over the week I spent some time around Station Pier, looking at the ship in the company of strangers. People came and […]
FISHERMANS BEND & MONTAGUE
Turner Street, Fishermans Bend
Road Portraits There was no Turner Street when children from the nearby Fishermans Bend Migrant Hostel played there in the fifties. It was like an Enid Blyton story, recalls former hostel resident Robin Nash, where the children constructed an imaginary world out of the mini-islands in the swamp. Their parents would make their way over the […]
PlACES NEARBY
Mangroves
In about 1986, Mark Adams planted 15,000 white mangroves in the mud at Stony Creek under the Westgate Bridge. Fifteen thousand! Spelling out that number, not just because it’s so huge, but because planting into the slipperiness of mud is about as difficult as planting conditions can be. After a century of petro-chemical discharge from […]